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Visual Approach

Mexican sunset

July 1, 2013

Photography by Chris Rose

Pilot Skip Gibbs regularly uses his Bonanza A36 to bring medical volunteers and supplies to remote areas of Mexico. Just before sunset, Gibbs was flying to the historic city of El Fuerte in the state of Sinaloa where LIGA International Flying Doctors of Mercy has been doing good works since 1934. The organization has a medical clinic in El Fuerte and brings medical technicians and surgeons there to treat ailments ranging from clubfeet to cataracts. Volunteer pilots like Gibbs bring the specialists to El Fuerte and beyond, and Gibbs’ Continental IO-550-powered A36 is an ideal airplane for the job because of its speed, range, payload, and ability to fly to and from unimproved airstrips.

Mark Scheuer was tired of yelling at his wife across the noisy cockpit of their Grumman Yankee, and he thought there had to be a better way of communicating. PS Engineering Inc. was born out of that necessity and is now celebrating its third decade of forging new ground in cockpit communication technology.

A tale of flying adventure, severe injuries, international political maneuvering, and an emergency at sea comes to life in "Floatplane Odyssey," a book that commemorates the twenty-fifth anniversary of Tom Casey’s 1990 around-the-world flight in a Cessna 206 on floats.